Huawei's New Mystery 7nm Chip from Chinese Fab Defies US Sanctions

HiSilicon
(Image credit: HiSilicon)

Huawei's Kirin 9000S system-on-chip that powers Huawei's new Mate 60 Pro smartphone is rumored to be made by China-based SMIC using its 2nd generation 7nm-class fabrication process and stacking, according to TechInsights, a significant semiconductor research firm, as per a report by the South China Morning Post. In addition, the SoC reportedly packs CPU and GPU featuring microarchitectures developed in-house. Meanwhile, all the information about the Kirin 9000S is strictly unofficial.

Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 9000S looks to be a quite complex SoC packing four high-performance cores (one at up to 2.62 GHz and two at up to 2,150 MHz) and four energy-efficient cores (up to 1,530 MHz) based on the company's own TaiShan microarchitecture (which still looks to be found on the Armv8a ISA ) as well as the Maleoon 910 graphics processing unit operating at up to 750 MHz, based on screenshots by Huawei Central. CPU and GPU cores run at relatively low clocks compared to frequencies of Arm's cores featured in previous generations of HiSilicon's SoCs.

But low frequencies can be explained by the fact that SMIC makes the new SoC on its unannounced 2nd generation 7nm fabrication process, which could be a breakthrough for SMIC, Huawei, and China's high-tech industry. Although TechInsights calls this fabrication technology SMIC's 2nd generation production node, state-controlled Global Times claims that China's foundry champion uses its 5nm-class manufacturing technology to make the SoC. But these two names seem to describe the same thing, which was once known as SMIC's N+2.

The Complete Story

Inside the chip: The HiSilicon Kirin 9000S looks to be a quite complex SoC

Effect on China: Chinese tech maker AMEC says US import restrictions will barely impact business

Sanctions began: Why the US imposed sanctions on SMIC, China's largest chipmaker, in 2020

SMIC briefly mentioned its N+2 manufacturing technology in 2020. At that time, it looked like an evolutionary step of its N+1, which was once called a low-cost alternative to TSMC's N7 (a 7nm-class fabrication process). In another Global Times publication, Chinese analysts labeled N+2 as SMIC's 5nm-class production node about a year ago.

SMIC has never confirmed that it produces chips on 7-and 5 nm-class nodes. Yet, there are independent proofs from TechInsights that SMIC produced MinerVa Semiconductor Bitcoin mining ASICs on its 7nm-class N+1 technology.

Meanwhile, SMIC's Twinscan NXT:2000i deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography scanners can make chips on 7nm and 5nm technologies, so that the company may have developed a 5nm-class fabrication process. There is an essential detail, though: to print outstanding features on a 5nm-class node or a refined 7nm-class process technology, SMIC has to heavily use multi-patterning, which is an expensive technology that affects yields and costs, so the economic efficiency of SMIC's 5nm-class technology is likely considerably lower than that of market leaders Intel, TSMC, and Samsung Foundry.

 An interesting detail about the Kirin 9000S is that it reportedly uses stacking technology, though Global Times does not elaborate on how it uses stacking. Perhaps the Kirin 9000S stacks the modem IC on top of the CPU+GPU IC to save space on the motherboard, or maybe disaggregates some logic to simplify production. But in any case, advanced packaging technology is also a breakthrough for SMIC and/or Huawei's HiSilicon.

Huawei's HiSilicon is China's most successful chip designer that has used to adopt TSMC's leading-edge fabrication technologies. After Huawei lost access to American technologies in 2020, HiSilicon could no longer work with the world's largest contract maker of chips, and it is believed that the parent company helped SMIC to advance its fabrication processes. If this is the case, then the Kirin 9000S is the first fruit of this collaboration.

Huawei has not commented on the matter, and even state-ran Global Times does not explicitly say that the HiSilicon Kirin 9000S uses SMIC's 5nm-class process technology but prefers to call the information a rumor.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • everettfsargent
    Defies US sanctions is just a bit rich here, in my honest opinion. If they got stuff that was under sanctions that would be one thing. Its like the US is the Big Bad Wolf that will huff and puff and blow China's house down. But China made their own bricks!
    Reply
  • pointa2b
    This is to be completely expected that they'd figure out a way. They don't want to fall too far behind.
    Reply
  • Shirou
    The stacking refers to the LPDDR5X memory IC on-top of the SOC die I believe.
    Also amazing is the 4.999999G technology.
    Reply
  • BethelOne
    Maybe they stockpiled those chips in 2020 before the sanctions kicked in. 7 nm chips was the standard back then. As far as I remember the chip prices had a peak back then and somewhere those chips had to go.
    Reply
  • gg83
    Shirou said:
    The stacking refers to the LPDDR5X memory IC on-top of the SOC die I believe.
    Also amazing is the 4.999999G technology.
    AI5G
    Reply
  • Laika21
    BethelOne said:
    Maybe they stockpiled those chips in 2020 before the sanctions kicked in. 7 nm chips was the standard back then. As far as I remember the chip prices had a peak back then and somewhere those chips had to go.
    Kirin 9000S is based upon 4x Arm Cortex 510 based core architecture, which is launched in 2021, 1 year after the sanctions initiated against Huawei, Then How come Huawei managed to stockpile millions chips in 2020 made upon an architecture released in 2021.. That is very highly unlikely.
    Reply
  • pug_s
    everettfsargent said:
    Defies US sanctions is just a bit rich here, in my honest opinion. If they got stuff that was under sanctions that would be one thing. Its like the US is the Big Bad Wolf that will huff and puff and blow China's house down. But China made their own bricks!
    Agreed. Sanctions is to bar Huawei from using US tech. If the Chinese developed their own tech, it didn't defy US sanctions at all.
    Reply
  • Zerk2012
    One thing that has already been proven is that some exports that were sanctioned were just shipped to another Conutry and repackaged so what makes people think they don't get imports the same way.
    Reply
  • tooltalk
    pug_s said:
    Agreed. Sanctions is to bar Huawei from using US tech. If the Chinese developed their own tech, it didn't defy US sanctions at all.
    a couple of key points some of you are missing here:
    1. China does not have a lot of native chip/manufacturing talent, or chip manufacturing supply-chain.
    2. SMIC's 7nm was developed quite a while ago -- by a former TSMC head of R&D, Mong Sang Liang, now co-CEO. They already had all the equipments they needed.
    3. the big question was not if China could "develop" their own 7nm, but how efficient and cost-effective their process and how fast yield would improve.
    4. Sanction failed in that it came too little and too late; not b/c China did something impossible.
    Reply
  • parkerthon
    tooltalk said:

    4. Sanction failed in that it came too little and too late; not b/c China did something impossible.
    Too late to stop this development I guess. But I’d argue the timing of the export ban has been highly effective and has been executed as well as one could hope diplomatically by drawing in all the key countries to support the ban to the hilt. The 2020 tarriffs were something else completely and not effective at all. That said, It won’t stop China from figuring this apparently crazy complex lithography tech out on their own eventually. The point was to knee cap China’s hostile use of technology so we(and other western style democracies) could get a lead in this next industrial revolution that is being spurned by AI supposedly. China has an unfair advantage in that they have no ethical boundaries to slow them down when developing and using this technology.
    Reply